We gather together
by darylsdiva1
Summary: Thanksgiving at the prison soon after they are joined by the Woodbury survivors. S3-4 interlude. One shot Caryl.


_The Thanksgiving hymn that lent its title to this story, "We gather together" started out as a Dutch folk song, whose secular lyrics set a decidedly nonreligious tone: "Wilder dan wilt, wie sal mij temmen," the song began, or "Wilder than wild, who will tame me?"_ Which seems to fit feral Daryl Dixon and his prey in the story fairly well. Source:

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.

 **AN:** Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

* * *

 _" **We gather together"**_

 _We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing;_ _  
_ _He chastens and hastens His will to make known;_ _  
_ _The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing;_ _  
_ _Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own._ _  
_ _-_ Traditional Thanksgiving Hymn, 16th c. Dutch folk tune

* * *

"All I'm saying is if he doesn't come back with something bigger than a squirrel yer gonna have a riot on yer hands." the new kid, Zack told Carol as he helped her lift the large bags of rice and dried lentils up onto the counter.

"People know it's not his fault." Beth said, bouncing Judith to try and keep her fussy pout from turning into a full blown tantrum.

Since the Woodbury refugees had joined them six weeks ago, they'd been living off of the stores they'd brought with them from the now abandoned town. Keeping their greatly enlarged numbers fed was proving to be one of the major challenges to be faced. Daryl had been going out hunting almost daily to try and provide game to supplement the already dwindling supplies.

It hadn't been going well.

The ever increasing herds around the prison, attracted by the number of living breathing humans inside, were stripping the forests of game, forcing the hunter to go farther afield. They had also set up snares, hoping to capture some of the farm animals turned feral, but so far that had only succeeded in holding the animals still while walkers devoured them.

"Tomorrow's _Thanksgiving_." Zack said, looking over at Beth with a frown. "Everybody knows it. It's all some of them can talk about."

"Then why don't _they_ go out in the walker infested woods and risk _their_ lives to shoot a damn turkey?" Beth snapped back, defending Daryl, her sharp tone tipping Judith over the edge into tears and a wail.

The walkers at the fence grew agitated, the baby's cry rising like a siren's call.

"Take her inside, Beth." Carol ordered sharply, glancing over at the fences, assessing the strength and numbers of the creatures rattling the wire and making their gross moaning cries.

"I'm sorry, Carol." Beth apologized, shifting the baby up higher on her shoulder and chest so she could walk with her more quickly. She shot Zack an accusing look for provoking her and then turned and went towards and through the nearest door to the interior of the C block.

"She's awful touchy about Dixon..." Zack grumbled, flopping down onto the top of one of the outdoor tables, his jealousy apparent.

"Daryl's a hero to her." Carol said, still looking at the fence, waiting to see if the herd calmed enough for her to return to her work preparing dinner.

"Yeah, I get it..." Zack sighed, looking defeated, "... but man—how's a guy supposed to compete with _that_?"

Carol suppressed her smile.

"I mean—shit—he's like somebody had a check list of everything that makes a dude cool!" he held up his left hand and began counting off all of what he considered Daryl's bonifides by raising a finger for each: "Motorcycle, _check_ ; cross-bow, _check_ ; leather, _check_ ; broad shoulders and arms like trees, _check_ ; low raspy voice, _check;_ steely blue eyes-" then he stopped, noticing the amused look Carol was giving him. Blushing, he gave an exasperated sigh.

"Is that all?" Carol asked, raising an eyebrow. She could think of a few other of Daryl's attributes to add to the list; none of which she felt necessary to share with the young man in front of her who was already feeling inadequate.

"Why _wouldn't_ she be nuts about the dude?" Zack huffed.

"How old are you Zack?" Carol asked, motioning him forward, coming out from behind the cooking counter to start to walk towards the fences. She was worried about the walkers congregating around the main gate. When Daryl returned, especially if he had a good hunt, that could be a problem.

"Nineteen." Zack replied, coming to walk abreast of her.

"And how old is Beth?" Carol asked, signaling Glenn to open the inner fence gate as she grabbed two fence-walker killing tools from the bin and handed one to the kid.

"Beth's seventeen—almost eighteen." he replied with quick assurance, but then wilted a bit under Glenn's suspicious glare as they walked by him. He knew her brother-in-law was very protective of his wife's little sister, as was her father.

"And how old do you think Daryl is?" Carol asked, picking up her pace as they walked down the dirt road through the fallow plowed garden space everyone had been working to prepare for the spring planting.

"Uh..." Zack's forehead grew furrowed and then he shook his head and shrugged at her.

"How old do you think _I_ am?" Carol asked.

Zack looked at the expectant, confident expression on her smooth unlined face and then let his gaze roam over her trim shapely body in her form fitting cargo pants, boots and curve hugging knit shirt. That air of super competent sexiness warred with her graying hair, confusing him.

"I ain't so good at guessing people's ages." Zack replied, blushing.

"Well, let's just say Daryl and I are old enough to be Beth's parents, and that's how we feel about her; _protective_ and _parental_." Carol told him, moving close enough to the fence to punch her sharp ended pike through the brittle skull of a walker.

" _That_ old, huh?" Zack grinned, following suit and taking out a second walker with his long machete, cleaving the thing's head in half and pulling the blade back through cleanly.

 _"Smart ass."_ Carol chided, but smiled. "You _like_ her."

"Beth's real special." Zack said, blushing again.

"She's been through a lot...lost a lot..." Carol said, growing serious, taking out another walker, this one smaller and female.

"We all have." Zack nodded, "...but there has to still be _good_ stuff too..." he touched Carol's shoulder to draw her attention. "Like Thanksgiving."

The sound of a car engine cut through the steady buzz of moans and sounds from the herd surrounding the fences, drawing Carol's attention away from Zack.

"He's back." Carol said, trying not to show her excitement, but unable to contain her relieved smile.

The spring green Hyundai appeared through the trees on the road leading to the main gate. Tyreese and David, one of the Woodbury men, were on watch and they ran to open the new gate with its drawbridge-like lift arm and spiked outer fence. The car passed safely through the outer gate, but brought two of the dead in with it. Tyreese aimed his rifle at them, but Carol called him off.

Carol and Zack sprinted forward through the open inside gate, using their fence clearers to take out the intruders, dropping them easily while still inside the enclosure.

Daryl pulled the car inside the interior fence and Ty and David closed it back up. When the Archer opened the car door even Carol, who had come to the front of the group greeting him had to step back, holding her hand over her nose and blinking rapidly.

" _Holy shit!_ What is that _stench_?" Zack blurted. Surrounded by the putrefying dead he thought he could handle most bad smells, but this was truly nauseating.

"Pig shit." Daryl said succinctly, pointing at the cargo space in the rear of the car. The back seat was folded down and the sounds of grunting and high pitched squeals made Hershel, who had been slowly making his way down the hill on his new leg with Beth's help, break into a huge smile and hurry his daughter along.

Carol looked Daryl up and down. He was almost never what anyone would call _clean_ , but at the moment he looked like he'd been rolling in red Georgia mud and he smelled almost as bad as the car interior.

"You brought back a _pig_?" Zack asked, wide eyed peering through the back window of the car trying to get a look while Carol, Ty and David just stared at Daryl in disbelief.

"Brought back _five_ of the little fuckers." Daryl said, wincing, hanging on to the side of the car door with his left hand, and holding his right hand to his side. "First I had a tussle with their bitch of a momma." He pointed up at the large mass wrapped in tarps and tied to the cargo rails on the roof of the car.

And then he pitched forward, out cold, into Carol's arms.

* * *

 _We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing;_ _  
_ _He chastens and hastens His will to make known;_ _  
_ _The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing;_ _  
_ _Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own._

Daryl heard the hymn being sung by a choir of angelic voices and felt disoriented, wondering where he was, probably dead in a ditch somewhere. He'd been out on his hunt for three days and nights with little sleep and the battle to kill the hog, struggle to corral the piglets and then field dress the sow had left him exhausted and so out of it he'd been talking to Merle just to stay awake while he drove home. When Merle started talking back he knew he was in real trouble.

 _Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,_ _  
_ _Ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine;_ _  
_ _So from the beginning the fight we were winning;_ _  
_ _Thou, Lord, were at our side, all glory be Thine!_

The sow had stomped him good, probably broke a couple ribs n' knocked his head into a tree. Carol would be pissed. _Carol_... _that's_ all Merle wanted to talk about, why he was ignoring the fine woman right in front of his nose. Could never win an argument with Merle. Didn't matter to him that the woman was _too_ fine for the likes of a wild Dixon; Merle poked and prodded until he had his way.

 _We all do extol Thee, Thou Leader triumphant,_ _  
_ _And pray that Thou still our Defender will be;_ _  
_ _Let Thy congregation escape tribulation;_ _  
_ _Thy Name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!_

Carol, with her gentle ways and backbone of steel, those knowing eyes that saw through to that which he really was, who told him he was just as good, and had made him feel like he could step up and contribute something valuable to the group. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

 _"Carol..."_ Daryl whispered.

"Daryl?" she asked, and he felt her hand gentle on his forehead, pressing a cool cloth to the lump there that had been hidden by the mud he'd been covered in.

"He gonna be okay?" Rick asked sounding concerned, looking down on his friend lying on the bunk, Carol sitting beside him. Judith cooed a little, chewing on her fist and Rick shifted her in his arms so she could look down at Daryl too.

Daryl blinked a few times, trying to open his eyes, but the lids seemed to be made of lead.

"Hershel says he got knocked around pretty badly by that pig—cracked ribs, this lump on his head." Carol told Rick.

 _"Dixon's got hard heads."_ Daryl muttered, repeating what the Merle in his head had assured him on the drive back.

Carol gave a choked laugh and so did Rick.

"Glad you and your hard head made it back." Rick told Daryl, who just grunted in reply.

Rick snorted and shared an amused look with Carol.

"I'll tell everyone he's doing better—I'll have Beth bring you a plate." Rick said, knowing Carol wouldn't leave Daryl's side, where she'd been since yesterday when he'd returned.

"I'll have some later, thanks." Carol said. There was plenty for once. The once domesticated sow gone feral had probably weighed close to five hundred pounds. After Daryl had removed the innards and bled it out, he'd used his razor sharp buck knife to cut the pig into manageable chunks that he wrapped and somehow got up onto the car's roof.

Hershel had instructed them how to finish the butchering and then they had pit roasted the majority of the meat for a good old fashioned hog roast, rendering the useful fat and even planned to try and make a ham or two.

The weaned piglets were still of an age to be tamed, so Carl, Patrick and Zack were put to work building a pen for them. Hershel had been tickled pink to see that Daryl had the foresight to bring them back alive. Their manure would help fertilize the crops and they would eat just about anything. They were a great foundation stock animal to have.

"Happy Thanksgiving then, Carol." Rick said with a smile, "I guess we all really do have a lot to be thankful for today."

Carol looked at Lori's baby, now safe in Rick's arms, remembering the way Zack had looked at Beth as she held the little one and knew there was hope for the future in these things. Maybe they could all stop holding their breath waiting for the next bad thing to happen and finally start to really _live_ again. _The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing..._

"Happy Thanksgiving, Rick." Carol said, giving him a hopeful smile, watching him back out of the cell and walk away. She turned back to the bed, removing the cloth from Daryl's forehead so she could dunk it in the cold water again.

Daryl opened his eyes and looked up at her, warm and blue; the side of his mouth quirking, reaching up to capture her hand in his to still it.

"So we're holding hands now?" Carol teased gently, feeling his fingers close more tightly around hers.

 _"Just so you know,"_ Daryl said softly, _"M' thankful for you."_

* * *

 **Chapter End Notes:**

I know—poignant when you know what's coming after this, but I think fitting to the hopefulness that they all had at this time in the prison between S3 & S4.

And pig poop is the most foul smelling stuff imaginable. I rented a house next to a pig farm for a year and it was horrible, but the rent was cheap, LOL!

Thanks for reading!


End file.
